Self Energy vs The Yetzer Hara

In last week’s article, someone shared some bad experiences with couples therapy and wondered if couples therapy could work given this past experience. I introduced the idea of Self Energy, explaining that in Internal Family Systems therapy, the therapist must draw on her or his own Self Energy so as to avoid the pitfalls that this person was describing had happened to her and her spouse with previous therapists.

I shared a few of the characteristics of Self Energy to give an idea of what it was and why the use of Self Energy makes IFS a safer bet than many other therapies out there.

However, what has amazed me since I began learning what IFS is all about is that so many of it’s tenets seem to be in line with our Torah. For example, IFS holds that the characteristics of Self include compassion, kindness, curiosity, calm, and connection. Well, these certainly are characteristics of our Neshamos.

But many therapy methods surely are in line with Torah in some ways, so what is special here?

Let’s look a little further. Here are some things we know about Self Energy according to the originator of it’s use in therapy, Dr. Richard C. Schwartz:

1. Self Energy doesn’t have an agenda. Yes, people have larger life goals, but there are no immediate forces within Self Energy toward a particular end in the moment. Self Energy just is; it’s a state of being.
2. Self Energy is benign. If negative thoughts or feelings come into play, they do not come from Self Energy; they come from “helpers” which we will talk about in a bit.
3. In addition to the 8 C’s we mentioned in the last article (calm, compassion, connection, creativity, courage, confidence, clarity, and curious) Self Energy also 5 P’s - perspective, patience, presence, playfulness, and persistence. And wisdom, intuition, kindness, truthfulness, gratitude, open-heartedness, giving, joy, and love.

Doesn’t all this sound like our Neshama, our beautiful Souls? It certainly does to me. And that is only the beginning of the parallels between IFS and a Jewish outlook on who we are as humans.

Now, let’s look at the rest of who we are. Not only do we have Self Energy, but we have those  “helpers” I mentioned before.

In IFS terms, they are called “parts” of us so as not to make them sound “bad.” Dr. Schwartz believes that there are no bad parts but sometimes they act badly. Not only is this distinction important but even more interesting, the parts don’t even like the roles that they felt obligated to take on when we were children.

They took on these roles in order to protect us from the challenges of a difficult or even traumatic environment. Now let’s compare this concept to the “yetzer hara,” the bad inclination. What is an inclination? It’s not a quality of a person, it’s a leaning, a direction to go, as in “I’m inclined to take up his offer.”

In Jewish thought, we are not bad. We may have an inclination to do something bad (the word “rah” means bad) but we don’t become bad because we have a “bad inclination.” In fact, the Torah encourages us to not follow that inclination!

We have free choice, after all. So, just as one of the principles of Self Energy is that we cannot be and are not damaged, so too, our Torah sees as good at our core.

The parallel here between IFS and a Torah view of humans is that in both cases, we must take responsibility for the bad things we do, but we have the capacity to not follow our yetzer hara, or in IFS terms, our parts.

In Jewish thought, the object is for the Neshama to take charge of our yetzer. Well, that is also the case in IFS: Self Energy is meant to lead the parts. In fact, this discipline is called “internal family systems” because it likens the parts of us to children and our Self is the parent.

Let’s explain that a bit:

The parts developed when we were children and they are still stuck back in the past within our memories. The force of their behavior in our lives today comes from the fact that those past experiences remain unresolved - and our parts would like to resolve them in one way or another.

For example, let’s say, as a child, if Robbie, 4, could provoke Sammy, 7, to attack him, then he would get the sympathy of his mom, and best of all, he could get Sammy in trouble. What a delightful power trip! So Robbie developed a part that we can call his schemer part, right? A part that schemes to win.

That part could stay with Robbie all his life if his parents kept on falling for his tricks. And that is no good! Imagine what that could do to a marriage. And we’ve all developed various parts that were supposed to be helpful at one time. You might wonder why Robbie’s part was needed in the first place. Well, maybe he was given too much attention because he was little and cute and he came to think he needed it, like oxygen. After all, parts are little when they come into being, so they think like little kids do.

Angry parts, defensive parts, sarcastic parts, shut down parts, argumentative parts, self-righteous parts all struggle to take over us, each with its own reason why it’s methods and concerns are of the utmost importance. And they have the logic of children.

The reality is that we will stop suffering only when we can address our emotional hurts with self-love, compassion, and kindness - qualities of Self Energy. We’d need to get Robbie’s Self Energy to come forth and reassure the little schemer part that he can drop that scheming role because it isn’t helpful.

It may be easier said than done, but it is exactly (in a nutshell) the process of IFS therapy. Healing is rescuing the little parts from their stuck place so that Self Energy can lead.

Doesn’t this sound like the Torah’s injunction for us to take control of our yetzers, our inclinations?

• Inner child work
• Internal Family Systems (IFS)
• Trauma